


the seconds between the lightning and the thunder

by hyucklees



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Fluff, Kissing in the Rain, M/M, Making Out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 00:49:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14320845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyucklees/pseuds/hyucklees
Summary: “But you’re scared of just about everything, aren’t you?”





	the seconds between the lightning and the thunder

The world spins at approximately 1600 kilometers per hour and Mark has been dizzy since the day he was born. So there he sits, a comfortable distance from the cliff that is much too high above the water beneath it, watching his friends willing jump to what might as well be their death over and over again. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to try it? Not even once?” Jeno goads as he tosses his hair in a beach towel. “Even Renjun jumped!”

Mark shakes his head with an apologetic smile, one that always says  _ sorry for being the boring one, but thanks for still inviting me _ . Jeno’s knee nudges Mark’s shoulder a little before he jogs off towards some of the others standing near the edge. 

“We could just toss him! Then he’d have to get over being scared,” Jisung whispers, pulling them all into a huddle. 

“And traumatize him for the rest of his life?” Jaemin says. He shoves Jisung’s shoulder but immediately reaches to steady him again when he remembers how close they are to the cliff’s end. “Just leave him be. He’s having fun.”

They all glance up at Mark to see him watching them back; his eyes say that he knows they’re talking about him. Jisung waves weakly and Mark smiles back. No hard feelings, he understands what they must be saying. 

There’s a sound of distant thunder all around them, so far away that they never saw the lightning come down. The clouds rolling in from behind the mountains are asphalt gray and they inch closer every time the boys so much as blink. Mark can practically see what they’ll look like five minutes from now, shivering and rain-soaked to the point that no towel could save them. 

Mark is the first to point towards the car, but Jisung is the first to take off into a sprint when the thunder claps again and the sky lights up without any sign of the sun. There’s scattered yelling and heavy footsteps as they race the oncoming downpour, Chenle is pulling Renjun by the hand to keep him from lagging behind and they all seem to run a little bit faster with every new rumble that echoes through the canyon.

Jeno is anxiously pulling on the door handle by the time Mark gets to the car and he clicks the unlock button over and over again until they can all get inside. Mark’s mom’s old mini-van is equipped with seven seats: one for each of them as long as long as someone is willing to get smushed in the middle back seat. He turns around to see Jaemin smushed uncomfortably between Renjun and Jeno talking around him as he leans back against the tiny headrest. The middle row is Jisung already half asleep against the window and Chenle still attempting to hold a conversation with him while only being answered with grunts. Mark is driving as always, and the passenger’s seat is empty. 

The passenger’s seat is empty. 

“Donghyuck,” Mark says, not in anger but in annoyance, and he steps out of the car despite the others warning him of the storm that’s already blanketed the car in a shadow.

Mark can feel the electricity in the air as he jogs back towards the cliffside. He approaches Donghyuck with his feet dangling over the edge, head tilted back towards the sky.

“Why are you all so afraid of a little rain?” Donghyuck says, kicking his feet back and forth in the air. His heel knocks a chunk of rock and it loosens from the cliff face, beginning its descent towards the water below. Mark doesn’t peer over the edge to watch it fall, but he listens for the small splash that comes a few seconds later.

“Let’s go home before we get wet, come on.” Mark reaches out his hand to Donghyuck to help him up, but instead Donghyuck takes it and tugs him down until Mark reluctantly sits down next to him. Mark crosses his legs beneath him, not daring to let them hang over the gorge down below, but it’s close enough, so Donghyuck lets go of his hand and lays back against the rock beneath them. 

“We’ve been swimming all day, Mark,” Donghyuck says, watching the clouds hover over them, “getting wet is really the least of my worries at this point.”

There’s another spark of lightning in the distance bright enough to catch Mark’s eye and his head turns towards it, counting the seconds between the flash and the thunder like he used to as a kid.

“You’re scared of lightning?” Donghyuck says, not bothering to look away from his focus on the sky. 

“It’s the thunder more than anything,” Mark glances down at where his hands lie in his lap, counting the number eight just when the thunder sounds all around them.

“Thunder is just a sound, it can’t hurt you,” Donghyuck pushes himself back upright to look at Mark. “But you’re scared of just about everything, aren’t you?”

“Not scared, just cautious,” Mark says, getting on his feet and brushing the dust off of his swim trunks. “Now, can we go?”

“How much money would I have to pay you to jump off this cliff right now?” Donghyuck says, leaning over his own legs to look at the drop below. 

“There isn’t enough money in the world,” Mark says, reaching out his hand again to help Donghyuck up. This time he takes it and pulls himself up, grabbing his towel off of the ground and slinging it over his shoulder.

As they start to walk towards the car, a particularly loud crash of thunder makes the ground beneath them shake and Donghyuck doesn’t miss the way Mark’s shoulders tense up at the sound. The first raindrop lands right on the top of Donghyuck’s head, and he shoots straight up as he realizes that the car is too far away to make it in safely before it starts pouring. He reaches over to grab Mark’s hand in his and watches as a raindrop lands on Mark’s forearm. Mark gives him a knowing look, and before they have words to say, they take off towards the car just as the sky begins to fall. 

Mark is pulling Donghyuck behind him, nearly begging him to keep up as his skin turns cold, but he knows his effort is all for naught as the rain bombards him from all sides. Donghyuck squeals, somewhere in between laughing and shrieking, finally matching Mark’s strides as they near the car. 

Mark opens the passenger’s side door to let Donghyuck in, gesturing wildly for him to get inside and out of the rain, but Donghyuck can’t help but look up at the sky and watch every raindrop that falls in between them. 

“What are you doing?” Mark yells over the rain. He looks up to the sky to try and see what’s stolen Donghyuck’s attention, but he only sees a gray sky. He leaves the car door open and jogs to the other side, getting in and turning the ignition. Donghyuck climbs in just as the air conditioner kicks on and the two yelp at the cold air against their wet bodies. 

Mark turns around to see most everyone dozed off, no doubt sun-tired from the hours before the storm. Only Jeno is still awake, sitting in the corner with Jaemin’s head lulled against his shoulder.

“You’re an idiot, Donghyuck,” Jeno whispers, but his whispers are hardly quiet and Jaemin stirs beside him. Donghyuck just smiles back at him with a hint of mischief in his eye that always seems to show up at the worst times, and Mark puts the van into drive. 

Mark became the designated chauffeur the moment he got his license and despite Renjun and Jeno now being able to drive on their own, he has the only car that can fit all seven of them. They have a system of who gets dropped off first on their group outings, starting on the west end of town and ending at Mark’s house in the east. Jisung always goes first, and is always the last to be picked up too, but he never complains much. The rest trickle out one by one as Mark comes to a stop in front of all of their houses, each one mumbling a half-asleep goodbye and Jaemin getting all the way inside before running back to the car to get his phone, his towel, and his shoes. When Mark finally pulls into his own driveway, just as always, Donghyuck is still sitting in the passenger’s seat with his feet propped up against the dashboard.

“Are you not going to drop me off at my house?” Donghyuck says, gazing outside at where the rain still splatters on the windows. 

“You live across the street,” Mark laughs, “How much further do you want me to take you? Your front door?”

“That’d be nice, actually,” Donghyuck sneers, but there’s no hostility in his words as he opens the door and hops out into the rain. 

Mark races to his front door and watches from underneath the safety of his porch as Donghyuck trudges home through the rain. Mark thinks he looks like an angry cat in that moment, wet and shrivelled and looking back at Mark with a glare every few seconds. 

Mark is about to turn and head inside when Donghyuck turns onto the sidewalk instead of walking up the driveway to his house, slumping down onto a bench and smirking at the way Mark’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. For a moment, Mark considers leaving Donghyuck to his antics for the night, but the smile plastered on Donghyuck’s face across the street is enough to pull him back into the rain. 

“What are you doing?” Mark half-yells over the rain. He can already feel the front of his hair slumping down onto his forehead but he knows that if he pushes it away it will only get washed back down onto his face. “You were so mad about getting wet when I let you out of the car, and now you’re just sitting here in it?”

“I decided that if I’m going to get drenched, I might as well get revenge,” Donghyuck says, stretching his legs out in front of him until his feet settle in the muddy grass. “Now, I may be wet, but so are you. And we both look like fools sitting out here in the rain instead of just me.”

Donghyuck always does this, tries to predict what Mark will do if he does something ridiculous first, and he always seems to get it right. Mark is always the one chasing him through the rain or showing up on his doorstep at one o’clock in the morning just because Donghyuck sent him a text asking him to. Donghyuck was the reason that Mark rode a rollercoaster for the first (and only) time, and Donghyuck would probably be the reason that Mark got the flu next week after following him out into the rain twice in one day. 

Mark lands on the bench next to him with a thud. He winces at the wetness of the seat before remembering that the rest of him is soaked too, and he looks up to see a very happy Donghyuck beaming down at him. 

Thunder claps around them so loud that Mark can’t believe he didn’t see the light before it. He bolts upright in his seat with wide eyes at the sound and the feeling of rumbling that travels through his feet all the way up into his lungs. Donghyuck reaches out a reassuring hand onto Mark’s forearm, which Mark then scrambles to hold in both of his as another crash echoes around them. 

Donghyuck’s other hand finds Mark’s shoulder, planting him in place as the world around him continues to spin. Mark looks up at his through the dripping ends of his hair and Donghyuck can’t help but think about how big Mark’s eyes have always been and how they seem to grow even bigger when he’s scared. He smiles, a reassurance, and Mark nods back, although neither one of them break their places to head inside. Donghyuck’s other hand slides down to hold Mark’s, their hands now a braid of shaking fingers paired with warm, steady ones.

“What are you so afraid of, Mark Lee?” Donghyuck asks, but he’s not sure why he’s asking at all because he knows Mark will never be able to answer him. He begins to apologize, he knows his mouth moves faster than his brain sometimes, but he’s cut off by the air leaving his lungs as Mark leans forward to take a risk for the first time in who knows how long.

Donghyuck’s hands pull away from Mark’s and instead find their place on either side of his torso. His wet t-shirt clings to his sides and Donghyuck can feel the warmth coming off of his skin that’s so unlike the cold rain falling around them. He pulls Mark closer to him, inch by inch until Mark is swinging one of his legs over Donghyuck and pushing him back against the bench while his hands clutch tight onto Donghyuck’s shirt. 

Mark is dizzy, seeing stars behind his eyes as thunder crashes around them but he can’t seem to let go. Maybe it’s out of fear of what happens when he pulls away or maybe it’s just because he likes the feeling of adrenaline in his veins too much to forget it so soon. His teeth ache like he just ate something too sweet but the only thing he can taste is Donghyuck and the rest of his senses are filled just the same with the boy.

It’s Donghyuck who breaks away first, pulling Mark down against him so he can bury his face in the older’s neck. He almost doesn’t feel the rain landing on the crown of his head but it finally comes into focus when Donghyuck notices that the rain is slowing down, drizzling into nearly nothing. 

“Fuck,” Mark laughs, groaning at the feeling of the two of them stuck together  and groaning harder at the realization that they’re in the middle of the neighborhood where anyone (including both of their parents) could see what just happened. 

“What was that?” Donghyuck says, squeezing Mark’s side a bit so that he climbs off of the other, but his other hand stays rooted to Mark’s waist anyways. 

“You asked what I was scared of,” Mark says, tilting his head back to look up at the sky. “It sounded like a challenge. You know, daring me to conquer my fear.”

“Was I your fear?” Donghyuck laughs as his hand reaches down to find Mark’s. “Kissing me was scarier than thunderstorms? Or cliff-diving?”

“With a face like that?” Mark pinches Donghyuck’s cheek in between his fingers while his other hand holds Donghyuck a bit tighter. “I was absolutely terrified.”

“Shut up,” Donghyuck says, but he’s standing up anyways and pulling Mark behind him up the driveway to his front door, out of one storm and into another.

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by how much i think about kissing mark lee on a daily basis and also inspired by me not writing markhyuck for like two months
> 
> thanks for reading!  
> and also thanks to manaal aka SlimeQueen aka whinytaeyong on twitter for boosting my confidence by just sending things i wrote back to me in all caps with some added keyboard smashes to show she liked them
> 
> twitter: hesmarklee  
> curiouscat: nctdad


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